She opened her eyes, looked up, and fell into Ian Durne’s blue gaze. Without conscious effort, her face ignited in a dazzling smile that warmed her skin to roses and lit her eyes like jade touched with sunlight.
She saw him respond in kind, simply and with delight. Their eyes locked in a rapt gaze that excluded all but the tantalizing attraction they saw in each other.
Neither one of them realized how long they stayed there, staring at each other, until the two Governor’s Guards who came with the commander elbowed each other and loudly cleared their throats.
Commander Durne stood up and quelled them with one raised eyebrow. He offered a gloved hand to Linsha to help her up.
Trembling inside, she took it and let him pull her to her feet. She wasn’t certain she had the strength to make it on her own anyway. Her knees felt wobbly and her heart was pounding. But whether it was the waking from her dreams or the unexpected presence of Ian Durne that caused her weakness, she did not know.
“Two City Guards told me you had run into some trouble,” the commander said.
“A couple of looters,” Mica replied, still engrossed in a book. “The squire took care of them.”
Durne turned back to Linsha and indicated her torn, bloody shirt. “You were injured.”
“Yeah. The dwarf took care of that,” Linsha retorted.
The commander’s lip twitched in a controlled smile. “Are you well enough to continue your duties?” he asked Linsha.
“Of course. I’m fine,” snapped the dwarf. At the startled silence that followed, he lifted his head, looked at the four guards staring at him, and belatedly realized the commander wasn’t talking to him. He grumbled something and went back to reading.
“I’ll be all right,” Linsha answered. “I was waiting for him to finish.”
“It’s getting late,” the commander observed. “If you wait for him to finish, you could be here for several days.”
A glance out the window showed Linsha he was right. The shadows had grown quite long since she sat down, and the sun was settling low in the western sky. She rubbed her forehead. She had obviously slept longer than she thought.
Commander Durne studied her pale face and remembered the state of his body after the dwarf healed his head injury. The mystic healing sped up the process of recovery nicely, but the body still had to recover from the shock of injury and blood loss. He made up his mind. “We were going back to the palace. Pack your books, Master Dwarf, and we will ride with you to the temple.”
Mica recognized an order when he heard it. Reluctantly he closed the book he was reading and piled the four together. He and the guards wrapped the volumes in blankets and bundled them together with rope. They loaded the books on the back of Mica’s horse. When they were finished, Linsha closed the shutters in the shop window, bade a silent farewell to the dead priest, and pulled the door shut behind her.
In a group, the guards and the healer rode back to Ship-maker’s Road and turned east toward the city gates and inner Sanction. They saw very few people. The sick lay in their beds and ranted and died in the frightful heat; the well stayed indoors, either hiding or caring for their loved ones. The harbor and the city lay in a stupor of late afternoon heat and malaise that showed no sign of relenting.
At this rate, Linsha thought, the city would be easy pickings for the first enemy who dared risk Lord Bight’s wrath. She sighed.
Commander Durne heard her and turned his head to see her. He slowed his stallion until Windcatcher walked by his side. “What are you thinking?” he asked softly.
Linsha liked his voice. She liked his nearness and the way he spoke to her as if he genuinely wanted to know what was on her mind. She couldn’t imagine that a man like him would be interested in a sell-sword with Lynn’s dubious history, and yet his eyes devoured her and the vein in his neck seemed to throb with the same nervous pounding hers had.
“I was thinking that Sanction is dying,” she finally answered. “If this plague doesn’t ease off soon, it will decimate the entire population and leave the city vulnerable to attack. I’m not sure even Lord Bight has the strength to defend Sanction alone… if he survives.”
“I hope the plague doesn’t last that long!” he said fervently. “But you’re right to worry. The City Guards have been hit hard, particularly those who patrolled the harbor district, and the plague is spreading through the eastern guard camp.” He paused and glanced at her thoughtfully. “Did Mica find anything in the records he was so anxious to read?”
“I don’t think so. They’re from a temple in Sanction. I can’t imagine that they will include anything from as far away as Kalaman.”
Commander Durne surprised her by visibly starting. The movement was spontaneous and immediately controlled, so she wasn’t certain what she had seen in his face. Did he already know about the earlier outbreak? No, how could he? Surely he would have told Mica or Lord Bight. She was just letting her suspicious nature read more into this than was there.
“What does Kalaman have to do with this?” he asked, his voice faintly curious.
“We learned there was an earlier plague there that was similar to this one,” she answered.
“Where did you hear that?”
Linsha made it a policy never to reveal her sources unless directly ordered. “From an old resident who was ill.”
“Was this resident lucid at the time?”
Linsha pretended to study the stone flagging beneath Windcatcher’s hooves. She heard a note in his voice she could not clearly identify. Was it excitement or alarm? “I don’t know. Seemed lucid enough, but you know how fevers can affect people. It seemed a good lead at the time.”
“What did Mica make of this lead?” Durne persisted.
“Very little. He doesn’t hold out much hope of finding something useful.” She shook her head, trying to be tolerant. “But then he doesn’t hold out much hope for anything. Especially me.”
Durne chuckled. “Nor any of us. Mica is a superb healer, but he cares more for the process than the patients.” He shot a look over his shoulder to the dwarf, who rode silently at the end of the group. Mica’s eyes were elsewhere, his.thoughts probably lost somewhere in the text he had read. Durne leaned slightly closer to Linsha and lowered his voice. “Watch your back around him, Lynn. Lord Bight is not entirely certain of his loyalties.”
Linsha started to say some trite remark, then closed her mouth. She didn’t really know what to say. Or what to think. There were so many possible players in this game of intrigue in Sanction, it was almost impossible to be certain of who everyone really was. There was an alleged Knight of Takhisis in the government somewhere, but for all she knew, the Legion could have infiltrated the governor’s inner circle, or the Knights of Solamnia could have slipped someone in and not told her. There could even be a spy with his own agenda who wormed his way into the court, or a disgruntled advisor who was spreading rumors. The possibilities were endless and too much for her tired brain this evening. She nodded her thanks to Commander Durne and lapsed into a pensive silence that lasted long after they left the harbor district behind.
Chapter
The party of red-clad guards rode through the city gates just as the merchant guild’s clock rang five. The city guards at the gate saluted their commander and waved the group through. They were past the Souk Bazaar and had made the turn on the road to the Governor’s Palace and the temple of the mystics when a clatter of hoofbeats caught their attention. Lord Bight, mounted on his sorrel, came trotting down the road at the head of a troop of heavily armed Governor’s Guards. He saw Commander Durne and rose in his stirrups.